


Temptation

by AlphaCygni



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Biblical References, Garak has a tail because I like it, Genetic Engineering, Just Two Exiles Flirting Via Exegesis, M/M, POV Julian Bashir, Terok Nor (Star Trek)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 12:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19393816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaCygni/pseuds/AlphaCygni
Summary: What might have been if Julian Bashir had not “mistaken” a preganglionic fiber for a postganglionic nerve.A canon divergent Garak/Bashir meeting for theDeadly Sins G/Bfest.





	Temptation

I see my discourse leaves you cold;

Dear kids, I do not take offense;

Recall: the Devil, he is old,

Grow old yourselves, and he’ll make sense.

-Goethe, _Faust, Part I_

_Terok Nor, 2369_

_Three weeks before the end of the Occupation_

Julian first heard the story in that gray room on Adigeon. They’d kept him there, after, for observation, and there hadn’t been much to do: a battered chess set, a cot, a hodge-podge of picture books and hardcovers and padds. When he’d tired of arranging chess pieces in neat lines of black and white, Mum took a book from the shelf and read aloud, the way she did at home to soothe him. He liked to curl up and press an ear to her chest to listen. He never understood the sounds, not the way he knew he should, but he could feel the shape of them. They glided across his mind like a bow across a string.

But in that room on that day, he _did_ understand. The doctors had tuned the instrument, and sounds connected, music to meaning. Even now, his mind could play back each note just as he’d heard it, in his mother’s voice. Sometimes it played in the medbay as he dressed the same tedious series of sprains and burns. Sometimes it was in bed where he lie sweating, trying to remember what it felt like to be cold.

But most often, it was here. Here, at the long slick of bar, it was as inescapable as the clack and hum of the ore processors. It waited at the bottom of each glass of kanar.

He hated kanar.

He hated everything in this place.

Truth be told, he wasn’t particularly enamored of the story either. But it was human, and, in this inhuman place, he kept it close, even as it stung.

_And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know all things: and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life—_

“Can I get you another, Doctor?” It was the barkeep, that slimy, fawning Ferengi. Julian hated him, too. “Looks like you could use it.”

He had already finished two glasses, but his metabolism would make quick work of them—much _too_ quick for this mood. He’d need at least one more to drift into sleep. The good kind of sleep, anyway, dreamless and deep. That didn’t come easy these days.

Or cheap.

A quick tabulation told him there wasn’t enough latinum. If he wanted to last out the month, he’d need to save.

He lifted his empty glass with the grandeur of the miserably drunk. “‘ _The Lord God sent him forth from Paradise, to work the ground from whence he came_.’” He slammed his glass on the bar, upside down, the way the Cardassian officers did to signal that they’d had enough.

The Ferengi’s nod was polite, but Julian heard the scathing murmur about _hew-mons_ as the barkeep shuffled away. They forgot here—all of them—that his hearing was better. Than the Cardassians’. Than the Bajoran workers’. Hell, than everyone’s except, maybe, the Ferengi.

It was nice they forgot, honestly. It was the one good thing he could say for Cardassians: they didn’t give a damn about his enhancements. The Prefect even seemed to think it a delightful quirk. Julian suspected it was the reason he’d been offered the job here in the first place. The Prefect did like to collect alien oddities. Just look at that shapeshifter strolling and barking his way along the promenade, stalking like an exotic animal in a cage.

Julian wasn’t sure, when it came to it, if he preferred being a sideshow to a monster. But he hadn’t had much choice, so he’d been a good pet.

He hardly had it worst, of course. The Prefect kept his Bajoran women in a cage, too—an even smaller one. And while it was nicely appointed, it was a hell Julian couldn’t imagine. Occasionally, the Prefect would bring one of them out on his arm as if on a leash. She would follow beside and smile and laugh, and the next morning, Julian would see her in the medbay. Earlier that week, in fact, one of the women had complained of headaches and asked for an arcane prescription her grandmother had told her of. It hadn’t taken long to figure out why. The compound was a simple one and harmless enough to a Bajoran. Not, however, to a Cardassian. Death would be quick but painful.

He’d warned her, oblique and in low tones, of the food safety sensors and sent her away with an anxiety-reducing medication and what paltry comfort he could. That night, he’d imagined slipping something lethal into a hypo the next time the Prefect was on his biobed. Thoughts worthy of Khan, he upbraided himself. It didn’t stop him dreaming about it just the same.

Of all the things on the station, he hated the Prefect most of all.

He let out a scathing murmur of his own.

“My,” the man beside offered in a voice too light both for the décor and Julian’s mood. “The translator didn’t care for that one.”

He gave his neighbor a considered glance. The man was Cardassian, though he wasn’t draped in the flat gray the military men favored. This man wore a soft-looking fabric of dark blue, though around the edges, it was so dark it might have been black. Julian didn’t have a large vocabulary around fashion, but the word his mind supplied most readily was _sleek_. In fact, the man himself had a sort of sleekness. Not of body, which was actually bordering on stocky, but sleekness of presence. He sat like a shadow and looked at Julian as if he knew every last thought in his mind.

Julian shifted. “That’s the translator's decency filters, I expect. The closest Kardasi, if you’re so interested, would be _us’spulot_.”

The other man raised his eyeridges in appreciation—whether of the pronunciation or the vitriol of the swear, Julian couldn’t tell.

“I hope I haven’t offended your sensibilities, but you _are_ in a pub,” Julian said. “You’ll hear worse before the night’s out.”

“I hardly come to Quark’s for intelligent conversation.” There was something about the way the man smiled that was both pleasant and troubling. “And most of my conversations these days revolve around trousers, so, luckily for you, my standards are low.”

Julian snorted. What an arse.

The mention of trousers, however, confirmed Julian’s suspicion that this was the man the nurses had been discussing just the week prior. He’d arrived months before Julian with little pomp but plenty of rumor. He’d been assigned to mend uniforms—some punishment from the big brass on Prime, apparently, and, while no one seemed to know the exact nature of his crimes, everyone agreed that, whatever he’d done before, it was something more sinister than tailoring. The words _Obsidian Order_ had been whispered and that had been enough to end the gossip then and there.

Well, it might explain the sleek, insinuating manner, but even in the low light of Quark’s, Julian could see something else.

This man was looking for something in his kanar glass, too.

“You’re new to the station, I believe…?” the man asked. Julian doubted it was a question to which the Cardassian didn’t already know the answer.

In fact, it sounded more like a bad pick-up line, and, taking in the barbed sheen of slitted pupils traveling up and down him, Julian couldn’t swear it wasn’t. “Not _so_ new. I’ve been here almost a month now.” Even as he said it, it was hard to believe. Time didn’t really pass on Terok Nor: it simply _was_. There was no sun to mark the rhythm of days: there wasn’t much light at all, really, beyond the pinprick starlight through the windows. The Cardassians liked it quite dim even for augmented eyes, and so the last month had been a single span of the murky, endless night.

“I see. Doctor Bas’shir, isn’t it…?”

He nodded. “And you’re Garak. The tailor.”

“You know of me.” He didn’t seem happy to hear it.

“A little. I know you’re an exile like me.”

“Untrue. I _am_ in the Union,” he corrected, glancing around them with disdain. “Such as it is.”

“But you can’t go home?”

The man gave no answer other than a long draw of his kanar.

“Well, then. That makes you an exile.”

It was interesting, the change this truth produced. The other man’s lightness contracted a bit—curled in at the edges. What it revealed beneath was blank and hard and cold. Julian found it unsettling.

To his surprise, he liked being unsettled. “I’ve also heard you weren’t always a tailor.”

“And I’ve heard you worked with Starfleet.”

“Ahh, also untrue. I didn’t get the chance. Didn’t even technically graduate. Made my exit before they handed out the diplomas.”

“Hard to imagine what manner of sin would get one booted from the Federation. I understood they kept their reprobates and misfits for _rehabilitas’sion_.” The Cardassian produced the word in halting, accented Standard, as if he could think of no Kardasi equivalent. It had the same flavor as Julian’s curse.

“Usually that’s true. But I’m not rehabilitat-habilit-at-able.” Tongue heavy with kanar, he struggled through the sounds just as much. That couldn’t be right. “I, um, I can’t be fixed.”

“Oh?” Blue eyes swept him again. “You seem a prime specimen to me. Though, I confess, I’m hardly an expert on humans.”

Julian felt his cheeks heat and hoped the dim of the bar would hide it. “Yes, well, um… I’m afraid I managed to find the one unforgivable sin. Ate from the Tree of Knowledge, as it were.”

Curiosity traced across the Cardassian’s face. It looked quite nice on him. “Tree of Knowledge?”

“Oh…uh, from an old Earth myth,” Julian explained. “About the first humans.”

“Human religion? I don’t know much about it.”

“Well, certainly not _all_ humans. But it’s a, um, a popular one.”

“Please, Doctor. Do elaborate.” The cold was gone, replaced by heated interest. “Religion so often provides valuable insight into the psychological underpinnings of non-Cardassian cultures.”

Julian couldn’t help but laugh. Fucking Cardassians. They all said ‘non-Cardassian cultures’ in a way that made it quite clear they really meant ‘primitive savages.’ In fact, he couldn’t be entirely sure that they _weren’t_ saying that. The translator was never precise.

But the man had swiveled towards him, and Julian was oddly enjoying holding the other man’s eyes.

He would take any sort of enjoyment he could get these days. “Alright…well, let me see…um, in the beginning, there was God—uh, that’s the single, omnipotent creator of the universe. And He—”

“The omnipotent creator of the universe was _male_?” This seemed confusing to the Cardassian.

“Oh. I guess some people thought so, maybe. But most used the male pronoun as a kind of placeholder. God wouldn’t have a gender or anything, but, I don’t know, the language forced you to pick one.”

“How terribly imprecise,” Garak lamented with a look that said _Oh, those primitive savages._ “But…forgive me. Continue.”

“Right…so God created everything and then He—or She or They or Whatever—made humans and plopped them down in the middle of Paradise. There was plenty of food and water and everything they could ever need or want. And God said, Alright, you can live here in this garden forever. Just, you know, stay away from this _one_ tree. The Tree of Knowledge.”

Garak scoffed. “Ludicrous.”

“Ludicrous?”

“It’s an _obvious_ set-up,” Garak said over a sip of kanar. “As I said, I’m no expert on humans, but even _I_ know they’re not put off by ‘don’t go there and do this’. Humans are quite well known for boldly going and sticking their hot little fingers precisely where they’ve been told not to.”

Eyes glanced against. Julian couldn’t tell if this was intended to sound vaguely salacious or if the translator was to blame. “Yes, but, I mean, it’s not _so_ much to ask, is it? You’re in Paradise, just don’t do this _one_ thing. And they might _not_ have except they were… tempted. Corrupted.”

This caught his interest. “Oh?”

“Yes. By a serpent.”

Garak quirked an eyeridge. “The translator is no help here, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, _serpent_. An animal on Earth that was considered, you know, an incarnation of evil. A sort of reptile with scales and slitted pupils and—”

The black slits looking in his directions narrowed.

“Oh, well…It was a long time ago. And it wasn’t in _all_ cultures. In fact—”

“Don’t concern yourself, Doctor.” The man said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Our less-sophisticated ancestors had a similar idea—the _rajnit_. Hairy, scale-less, round-eyed monsters of unthinking malevolence.” He shrugged. “Peaceful relations between our peoples might have been doomed from the start.”

Julian smiled. An odd sensation these days.

It was an odd turn of events all around, this. He’d come to Quark’s looking for little more than something to help him bear the swelter of his empty quarters. He hadn’t expected smiles. Or sleekness. Or the way that, turned like this, their knees were mere centimeters apart.

His body, only slightly beyond his kanar-hazed control, made him aware that it had been some time since he’d found himself in an intimate encounter. Cardassians in general weren’t interested. One of the dabo girls had expressed interest when he’d first visited Quark’s, but Julian couldn’t. She was Bajoran: gorgeous, to be sure, but he’d never known how voluntary her service was or if she was even paid. And he’d thought of the Prefect. He’d abstained.

But this man…God, he really must be going a bit mad trapped in this place. This man was undoubtedly dangerous. Could probably snap his neck with a finger or poison him with some hidden microhypo like a spy in a holonovel.

Maybe, Julian reflected, it was as much about _that_ —the thrill of risk. He’d dreamt of nothing but adventure and peril and the frontier for years back on Earth. Here he did little more than bandage and counsel and try not to cause trouble.

Truth be told, he yearned for a little trouble. And this—he looked over the man as he took a deep drink, throat working—this was _certainly_ a new frontier.

Having drained the last drop from his cup, Garak set it on the bar. Julian was happy to see he didn’t turn it upside down. “So,” he said matter-of-factly, though Julian was sure he heard some softness in the syllable. The kanar at work on him, too. “How exactly did this _s’suhrpunt_ corrupt them?”

“Oh, you know,” Julian said, struggling to remember where he’d been in the story. “He, um, talked to them. Persuaded them.”

“That’s all it took?”

“Well, he _was_ convincing. Had a way with words, that serpent. Told them God was just afraid if they ate from the tree, they would become too wise. Too powerful.”

The other man considered this, nodding. “A compelling possibility, you must admit. Those who preside over Paradise do tend toward paranoia.”

This touched memory, and Julian couldn’t hold his gaze. He focused instead on his glass, upturned on the bar. The small ring of sticky blue puddling at its lip. The wobbly reflection of his face on its surface.

That was what he’d seen, in that’s admiral’s eyes—the one who had ordered him to report to SISP. In hooded eyes, the set of shoulders. The officer escort.

Fear. They were afraid.

_And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know all things—_

“I suppose God wasn’t interested in debating this _s’suhrpunt_ …? _”_ Garak offered, obviously trying to draw him back.

“Uh, no, no…I mean, God found out they’d eaten the fruit, and it was, ‘Out you go!” Julian pointed dramatically, almost taking out a bowl of sandpeas on the bar between them. “And after that...” In a second, it evaporated. The fleeting thrill of risk. The smile. “No more Paradise.”

They were both quiet for a time. Something in the space and silence spoke enough. _No more Paradise_ was a sentence they both heard and understood and felt, deep-down.

Julian could still see every detail, still _feel_ it, as his brain had recorded it. A glimpse caught from a portside window as they’d left Earth behind, blue dot receding, until it flickered out altogether. There’d been no voice of God, no grand proclamation—just the shaky buzz of cheap impulse engines and the pop of warp and then…gone.

When the other man finally spoke again, it was as polished and smooth as the line of bar in front of them. “And of what forbidden fruit, I must wonder, Doctor, did you partake?” It was impossible to tell from his tone if this was something he knew already.

Julian picked up a sandpea and rolled it lazily between fingers, watching its shell buckle and crack but never quite break. “I was genetically enhanced as a child. It’s illegal, in the Federation. Makes freaks and narcissistic Khans who want to bend the galaxy to their will.”

“Did you try to bend the galaxy to your will?” The Cardassian sounded oddly hopeful.

“No. Nothing so exciting. I just…got sloppy. Did too well on my exams. A disgruntled salutatorian got suspicious, did some digging, made some accusations…” He shrugged. “Truth came out.”

“And they turned you out of Paradise for _that_? For doing too well?”

“They didn’t _technically_ turn me out. They asked me to report to SISP—er, that’s the Starfleet Institute for the Study of Psychology. ‘Evaluation and clearance’, they called it. They’d already taken my parents. I…declined to report.” A glossy way of describing his month in the cargo hold of a freighter whose Ferengi owner demanded almost every last possession he’d had in exchange.

Eventually, that freighter had stopped here, at Terok Nor, and so had he. It had been a mistake: he knew that now. He should have tried to keep going. Should have rejected the Prefect’s offer and moved on. Onto another transport, to another place. Somewhere with a breeze or with temperatures lower than 38C. Or sunlight, for that matter.

But he’d had nothing when they docked save the clothes on his back and an empty belly. He had to…what was it? Work the ground from whence he was made. No bread but by the sweat of his brow and all that.

Besides if there was one place he might be safe it was here. No one from the Federation was exactly clambering to visit Terok Nor. No one in the Federation, he was beginning to notice, made much bother about this place or any of the terrible things he watched happen here every day. Not that he’d paid these places much thought either. Places like this had seemed such an adventure before. God, he’d been an idiot.

_And speaking of terrible things…_ “Wait, you haven’t told me what got _you_ kicked out of Paradise. You were in the Obsidian Order, weren’t you?”

To Julian’s surprise, the man hardly paused. “Indeed. I worked for the head of the Order.”

Julian hadn’t expected him to admit it so readily. He’d been given to understand the Obsidian Order was a rather secretive organization. “Oh. And, uh…what… sort of things did you do? Intelligence gathering? Or covert…operations?” He couldn’t bring himself to say _assassinations_ , but he was fairly sure the implication was clear.

“I was Director Tain’s personal assistant. Brought him one too many tepid cups of tea and—” He made a slicing gesture across his neckridges and throat.

Julian rolled his eyes. “Look, _I_ told _you_. Don’t know what good it does to be so cagey about it _now_.”

“I’m very serious. The Director was quite particular about his tea.” He lifted his eyes from his empty glass to meet Julian’s directly. There was no hint of a joke there. “By the way, you’re aware there’s a sizable reward for your return to Starfleet authorities…?”

A sudden scrabble of fear in Julian’s stomach warred with the kanar there.

“It hasn’t been broadcast on the main communication lines,” the man continued dispassionately. “It’s been quiet. Tidy. I don’t think our dear Prefect would be aware. But _someone_ wants you back. Intelligence services, I’d guess.”

Julian had never been entirely sure what the Obsidian Order did, but he’d heard enough implications to know better than to ask. Whatever was in this man’s past, Julian knew enough to be sure a man like that wouldn’t have any scruples about exchanging a fugitive for a handsome sum. And, if nothing else, the last month had taught Julian only too well the insidious allure of a full credit account.

But it was too late to do much about the situation as it stood. If the man intended to turn him in, he might have done so weeks ago. At any rate, there was little Julian could do if that changed. At the moment, there was really only one option available: don’t flinch. If this man was looking for fear or for guilt, Julian wouldn’t let him find any.

And he was just tipsy enough to manage an insouciance he didn’t feel. “Are you going to turn me in, Mister Garak?” He crunched the sandpea between his teeth now. It was loud. And bitter. “If so, you should at least buy me a drink first.”

This smile was better—or at least recognizable. It didn’t allay his fears, but it had a far more familiar outline. This wasn’t the smile of abduction or calculation or cruelty. No, this smile he knew. It betrayed an intention altogether different.

“I confess I considered it. But I’m not interested in helping Starfleet at the moment.” He waved to the Ferengi and leaned forward to turn Julian’s cup over once again. “I am, however, inclined to buy you a drink.”

Eyes touched and Julian stirred. Threat and flirtation were a new and unexpectedly effective combination.

_Don’t flinch._ “Oh? And why is that?”

Another smile and shrug as he pushed the refilled kanar glass forward. “I’m a _s’suhrpunt_ , what can I say.”

Julian laughed. It was a loud enough laugh that the Ferengi bartender rubbed at his ears with a disapproving glower.

_The serpent was more subtil than any beast in the field,_ Julian thought as he leaned a little closer. This close, he could see the slight sheen across the man’s lips. The soft blue between scales. “It’s no use trying to tempt me,” he said in an affected whisper. “I’ve already eaten the fruit.”

Garak gave him a look. It was the sort of look that, had the serpent given it to Eve, even God might not have blamed her. “Oh, there are many forbidden fruits to be tasted, my young friend. I’m sure I could introduce you to a few new ones.”

Very soft, very light, the tip of a tail tickled up Julian’s calf.

Julian swallowed. “I…I think I should finish my drink first.”

The other man’s smile was that of victory, but he gave a gracious nod nonetheless. He didn’t withdraw the creeping appendage. It wrapped suggestively around Julian’s ankle. “Oh, of course. One sip savored is worth a bottle gulped.”

Julian gulped anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> I blame the 43293857 _Good Omens_ tumblr posts I see each day for inspiring this. XD
> 
> I have a second half--Garak's POV three weeks later. It still, however, is not sparking joy and at this point I'm sick of looking at it. So, for now, this is a oneshot. Someday, hopefully, I'll add chapter 2.
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading and an extra super thanks to anyone amazing enough to kudos and/or comment!
> 
> If you like Trek, garashir, or a select subset of 43293857 Good Omens posts, please come by and say hi on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/alphacygni-8)!


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